44 Award of construction contract for delivery of new council homes at Edith Road PDF 346 KB
Report of the Director of Placemaking and Housing. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Council Housebuilding, Placemaking and Local Economy.
A report seeking approval to appoint a new Contractor to take over the Construction Works at Edith Road. These Sites were previously Contracted with Cosmur but following Cosmur's abandonment of the Sites they have had to be reprocured.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Cabinet Member for Council House Building, Placemaking, and Local Economy introduced the report and sought approval to the appointment of contractor A to complete the delivery of the new Council homes on a former vacant/car park site at Land opposite 16 Park Road/Edith Road N11.
Works had started on site with the previous contractor in September 2021; however, following lack of progress and repeated underperformance by the appointed contractor, the Council terminated its contract in March 2023. Subsequently, the appointment for a new contractor to complete the development had been underway.
In response to questions from Cllr Connor, the following was noted.
- Significant efforts had been made to performance manage the contract with the previous contractor and the Council had stepped in when it was apparent that the contactor was not able to continue to fur fill the requirement of the contract and complete the works. The overall nature of any contractual agreement did not safeguard any party when a contractor became insolvent. It was noted that this was a small scheme in the delivery programme and savings made on other schemes mitigated the impact on the housing delivery programme.
- The Director for Placemaking and Housing agreed to provide Cllr Connor with the financial information concerning how much had been paid to the previous contractor, the time and money spent managing the contact, and the loss to the Council because of the contractor becoming insolvent.
- It was noted that this particular provider also had other contracts in the housing delivery sector and had underbid for contracts during Covid and subsequently found that they were not able to deliver the programmes of works.
Further to considering, the exempt information set out at item 26,
RESOLVED
1. To approve pursuant to the Council’s Contract Standing Orders (CSO) 9.07.01d, the appointment of Contractor A (named in the exempt part of the report)to undertake building works to complete the provision of eight Council rented homes at land opposite 16 Park Road/Edith Road for a total contract sum of £2,404,164; and approves the on costs and client contingency sum set out in 6.31 of the exempt part of the report (Appendix 2).
2. To approve the issuance of a letter of intent up to a maximum value of £240,416 being no more than 10% of the contract sum.
Reasons for decisions
On 3 December 2019 Cabinet included the land opposite 16 Park Road/Edith Road N11 into the Council’s housing delivery programme. This scheme was subsequently granted planning consent and a works contractor was appointed to build the scheme in November 2021. However, due to lack of progress, underperformance and entry in to a Company Voluntary Arrangement by the Contractor, the Council terminated the contract and took back possession of the site and partially constructed building. A tender process was initiated in late spring 2023 to appoint a new contactor to complete the development. In this case a Performance Bond is in place against which a full Claim will ... view the full minutes text for item 44